Exploring the new expressways

The idea of world class highways in India, runway smooth, takes some
getting used to. There is the Golden Quadrilateral from Delhi to Mumbai,
and then there are the 70 kms of rubble between Disa in Gujarat and
Sanchor in Rajasthan.
Dilip D'Souza
drives into the New Year weekend.

That fabled romance of the road, that wide-open freedom that comes
from getting behind a wheel and taking off ... 2006 turns out to be
the first year I did that in India in substantial measure. I mean,
I've travelled all over this country by bus and train and plane and
car and jeep. But not so much on my own steam, at my own pace. Yet our
highways are so much part of the vision of an emerging new India that
I've long wanted to explore them.

Some disconnected impressions from two such explorations, to round out the year.

Nearly all of the trucks from Mumbai to Ahmedabad turn off at Baroda,
to follow the old NH-8. The reason: the toll from Baroda is Rs.61.

Bombay to Ahmedabad and on to points north, you ride on NH-8, part of
the extravagantly-hyped Golden Quadrilateral. Check these lines from a
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) write-up in my Eicher Road
Atlas of India (the atlas itself a response to the new romance):

When highways start giving the look and feel of runways, you would love to
take a long drive.
Like taking to the highways from Delhi to Mumbai -- a quarter length of
the entire Golden Quadrilateral, and experiencing the thrill of driving
on world class roads.
You just can't miss the smooth, wide 4-lane divided carriageways, even
6-lane at places. ... [W]hen you pay toll, that's value for money.

The idea of world class highways in India, runway smooth, connecting
our cities as never before, takes some getting used to. But if I am in
search of some ephemeral romance, NH-8 north from Bombay offers a
curious mix. One stretch is indeed a spectacular new expressway --
NE-1 from Baroda to Ahmedabad, which supplies fully half the pictures
alongside that NHAI write-up in my Atlas. NE-1 is very nice; but for
being so, sterile and faintly boring. Much of the rest of the drive,
NHAI write-up notwithstanding, is shabby two-lane. Far more
interesting than runway-like roads, much more of a challenge to
negotiate, but romantic? Have to think about that one.

'VIP' sign on display. Pic: Dilip D'Souza.

Begin with getting free of Bombay's grasping urban fingers, which is
an ordeal. Potholed stretches alternate with vast dusty construction.
That includes shoring up hillsides that the road cuts through. What do
you make of a sign that warns: "Falling Rocks, Drive Carefully"?

Drive carefully as the rocks send you into oblivion, I suppose.
Gave me enough to think about as we drove past. Though to be fair, there
were no rocks on the road.

Free of the city, there's less construction, but NH-8 doesn't improve
much. Slow truck in the passing lane, you finally pull left to
overtake it, wondering why it's there to begin with, and the rocky
ride tells you why. Rumble strips (always announced as "rumbling
strips") in villages and towns are so violent, you suspect parts will
fall off your car. (My all-time favourite bumper sticker: "The parts
falling off this car are of the finest British make." My Indian-made
car beats that British reputation).

Shabby stuff, this highway, but you get charged tolls all the way. Rs
25 here, 15 there, 35 somewhere else. What does all this money pay
for? The bumpy ride? Who can you complain to about what isn't value
for your tolls at all? Where's the "world class" and the "smooth, wide
4-lane" road?

Answer: at Baroda, where you enter NE-1. Thuds and bumps turn to
baby-smooth rocket ride as soon as you pass through a tollbooth.
Though that superb 100 km stretch raises other questions. You wonder
first about the toll itself, which is the peculiar figure of Rs 61.
(Sixty-one rupees, yes). Would a round figure not be easier?

You also notice how there are suddenly hardly any trucks. After miles
of weaving behind these overladen beasts, trying to overtake, the
contrast is striking. Why so few?

Answer: because you see nearly all of them turn off at Baroda, to
follow the old NH-8 to Ahmedabad. It must be toll-free, or cheaper
than Rs 61. Presumably it is as pocked with bumps and thuds as its
southerly reaches. So because you've paid this particular toll, you
shoot along NE-1 in largely solitary splendour, at speeds you never
thought you would achieve in India.

And as you cruise at 120 kmph, you can't help wondering if those
venerable Indian jalopies -- the Fiats, the Padminis, the Heralds, the
Ambassadors -- would even get up to these speeds. In itself, that
signals a sea-change from an earlier era. There are the occasional
Padminis huffing along, but they are clearly unable to keep pace with
the sleek zipping torpedoes -- Corollas, Octavias -- that make up the
majority of cars on Indian roads. Is there a case for the claim that
India has the youngest and sleekest fleet of cars in the entire world?

South of Bombay on another trip, the road gets progressively prettier
as you approach Goa. But that's after a hellish experience driving
through Panvel before dawn. It's utterly dark, but for a twenty- or
thirty-km stretch, not one streetlight is on. So we drive essentially
blind, and blinded even more by the intense headlights of the oncoming
traffic. Was a time, in India, when the guy coming the other way would
turn off his headlights, or lower them, as a courtesy. No longer.

NH-17 to Panji. Pic: Dilip D'Souza.

With all that, there's no way to see whether there are the occasional,
but customary, large stones just left lying on the road. You just hope
that you don't drive over them, that's all.

As the sky starts lightening, I turn onto the recently completed JNPT
road, which I know from previous trips to be a splendid 10 km or so.
I'm fairly racing along, relieved that I can sort of see things around
me at last, that the road is smooth and cruise-worthy ... without any
warning, I cross a small bridge and run right into a 50-metre stretch
of rubble. No other word for this but "rubble". Just large stones and
mud, instead of road. And I come upon it at 120 kmph. Words cannot
express the frustration and anger I feel then, even if I'm now smiling
ruefully at the memory.

Why are great projects like our highways invariably left with
substantial blemishes? And if there are to be such blemishes, why is
not possible to simply put up a warning? "Rubble ahead 100 metres":
what would it cost to erect such a sign?

Slicing northwest from Disa in Gujarat to Sanchor in
Rajasthan on that earlier trip, we had traversed some
70 km that seemed made of such rubble. 70 hellish
kilometres, gaping holes gouged in the surface of the
road and not much else. The trucks coming towards
us, as trucks do on such roads, give not an inch of
"side". So each time, we have to drive onto the
shoulder and hope it won't crumble. A nightmare, and
not just because we are on it late at night.

I don't smile at that memory.

Near JNPT as dawn breaks on this trip, like at Sanchor that night,
I silently check that the bones are intact. Then it comes to me:
roads like these are a throwback to days gone by. The buses I took
to college in the '70s barreled over such roads. (Back
then, buses were usually how I took to the road).

There were no better highways, then. But there are, now. So is it
disappointing to find miserable roads so easily today?

Dilip D'Souza writes regularly on the living conditions of India's downtrodden people. He is the author of two books Branded by Law: Looking at India's Denotified Tribes [Penguin 2001], and more recently, The Narmada Dammed: An Inquiry into the Politics of Development. He was a Scholar of Peace Fellow with WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace) in 2004-05.